“On a match day, wanting to do well, wanting to put on good performances and wanting to win; as a head coach making sure you’ve got that process right and that you have done everything you can to influence it – that takes up all your thoughts.

“What the opposition are doing is a part of it, maybe tactically, their strengths, their weaknesses definitely.

“But in the end it’s yourself, it’s your own job, it’s your own club that really dominates most of your feelings and thoughts rather than the opposition being a club that you were at or not.”

Jackett, who represented Wales as a defensive midfielder, was born into a football-mad family.

Growing up in that environment helped to cement a passion for the beautiful game.

“My dad used to take me to Watford, it was obviously an easy one because we were close,” he said. “I went to Vicarage Road really early on as a schoolboy.

“My dad would take me to a lot of football matches because he was football fan himself.

“I had an older brother playing in a very good standard of non-league so I used to watch him as well.

“So my footballing experiences were of quite a range in standard.

“He might take me to Spurs to watch maybe Steve Perryman or a good player in my position to try to learn.

“I had a good time there, but I’ve been away from there for quite some time and for my own career and for myself it was the right thing to move on.

“I’ve developed and improved as I’ve gone on.

“It’s a situation where you wouldn’t want to stand still, you’d always want to move and try to improve and test yourself.”